[Prot] WoD/Legion Alpha Discussion

[OrcinusDrake]

Hallelujah! Not perfect but it's a step in a good direction.

[Gallahadd]

Ok uptime and scaling look a bit shit right now...

But the big difference is THAT is something that can be tweaked during balancing.

I can see these changes going through and then the next few patches being a wave of minor tweaks to the numbers, till they end up right. Which is fine, it's kinda what beta is for.

[Won7on]

The taking a while to change some things I can forgive them for - it's to be expected imo. I feel even they know a lot is riding on Legion so I'd imagine they're being very careful. As is an ever-consistent theme with Blizzard though, their communication is garbage. Hell, even a simple "We hear what you're saying. Here is what we're considering currently, what are your thoughts?" would be a huge step in the right direction.

Remember the old Dev Cooler that GC used to do?

Instead, we get 10 posts for one or two specs, a few posts/updates here and there for a handful more, and complete radio silence towards the rest - in this case prot paladin, warriors, mages(?).

Agreed. I miss the Dev Watercooler very much. Blizzard developers have a rather predictable pattern these days: Fail to communicate with your players, apologize, promise to work on improving your communication in the future, repeat.

Also, wtf, Ghostcrawler was still around in 5.4? In my mind, he'd already left during Cata. Crazy.

P.S. When they say "20% stronger while in your Consecration", I hope they mean multiplicative (*1.2), not additive (+20%). The latter would be downright silly.

[FenixAU]

I'm sure it's multiplicative. Just taking the bonus from AS and shifting it to Consecrate.

- - - Updated - - -

So with the new changes in mind, how is stat priority looking? I'm too tired to make sense of the spreadsheet atm.

[celinamuna]

I'm sure it's multiplicative. Just taking the bonus from AS and shifting it to Consecrate.

- - - Updated - - -

So with the new changes in mind, how is stat priority looking? I'm too tired to make sense of the spreadsheet atm.

Hard to say, scaling got fucked up with the latest changes, so atm haste>crit for uptime, however crit is better interaction with lotp + parry.

[FenixAU]

Hard to say, scaling got fucked up with the latest changes, so atm haste>crit for uptime, however crit is better interaction with lotp + parry.

Hmm. Crit gives more AS procs through Parry too.

Mastery looking awful?

[celinamuna]

Hmm. Crit gives more AS procs through Parry too.

Mastery looking awful?

AS procs are now worth a lot less for survival, but yes.

Mastery looks weaker because we have 10-20% from artifact and 1.2 multiplier from cons baseline.

Tl;DR all stats are shit stack vers 4Head

[Serenais]

I do wonder how they plan to address the scaling issue. Right now the only thing that comes to mind is increasing the effect of Judgement, be it on both values or just on a single one. Anything else (lowering the base CD of Judgement comes to mind) feels a bit hamfisted, and might have unexpected results.
Apologies for my typosis, writing on a phone is a tiny bit challenging.

[Gallahadd]

I do think 2/4 might be a shade low, considering the previous effect was a total refresh.

Maybe 3/6 would be better? Or leave it at 2/4 but stick a further 2-4 on GC procs...

Also, anyone else wondering if Seraphim is going to be a flat boost like last time, or a % based increase?

[YourPalFleisch]

Seems like they should just tie the amount of CDR judgment gives to one of our stats (mastery/haste seem likely culprits). I'm concerned about the ubiquity of the consecrate bonus to SotR, what was once a somewhat skillful (if incredibly tedious) tracking of our AS buff now it going to be tied to a 100% uptime spell. Most of these changes seem like they're further plateauing the skill cap of Protadins...

I'm glad we're getting iterations, I'm just not sure this is enough to warrant a completely positive expectation.

[Taeldorian]

Been testing ret a lot, but I've seen some cool things with prot. What's the ability that turns you into the guardian of ancient kings model? That looked so badass, I haven't touched prot yet since my main focus is ret, but if ret sucks I'll be hitting up prot. Curious what that ability is, saw it yesterday on towelliees stream, anyone know what it's called?

[Komanchi]

Been testing ret a lot, but I've seen some cool things with prot. What's the ability that turns you into the guardian of ancient kings model? That looked so badass, I haven't touched prot yet since my main focus is ret, but if ret sucks I'll be hitting up prot. Curious what that ability is, saw it yesterday on towelliees stream, anyone know what it's called?

Guardian of Ancient Kings

[Deleted]

Seems like they should just tie the amount of CDR judgment gives to one of our stats (mastery/haste seem likely culprits). I'm concerned about the ubiquity of the consecrate bonus to SotR, what was once a somewhat skillful (if incredibly tedious) tracking of our AS buff now it going to be tied to a 100% uptime spell. Most of these changes seem like they're further plateauing the skill cap of Protadins...

I'm glad we're getting iterations, I'm just not sure this is enough to warrant a completely positive expectation.

The interaction with AS was never skillful. While, in theory, this is the sort of gameplay it should have created, in practice it was classic "noob trap" design. It was always either going to always be worth saving AS for SotR or never going to be worth doing so. What it would actually have created, as opposed to skillful gameplay, is a bunch of not-so-informed players doing far less damage than they ought to.

[Deleted]

The interaction with AS was never skillful. While, in theory, this is the sort of gameplay it should have created, in practice it was classic "noob trap" design. It was always either going to always be worth saving AS for SotR or never going to be worth doing so. What it would actually have created, as opposed to skillful gameplay, is a bunch of not-so-informed players doing far less damage than they ought to.

Exactly this.

In practice, tying the SotR bonus to Consecrate actually involves more thought than tying it to AvSh. For example, if you're going to be forced to move soon, do you want the gap in coverage before, or after the movement? It also encourages us to move Consecrate around in the priority so that we can keep 100% uptime rather than only pressing it because all the more exciting abilities are on cooldown. It's not especially complicated for most experienced players, true, but it's a whole hell of a lot more than we had--and we have stuff like Seraphim now for those of us who want to introduce complication.

[celinamuna]

Honestly, personally i'd prefer something like 3/7 for J's reductions.

[Deleted]

Honestly, personally i'd prefer something like 3/7 for J's reductions.

Thankfully now that we have the mechanic in place, it's much easier to make tuning arguments once that phase of beta gets going. Less reliance on 'soft' feedback like how things feel, more opportunity to show hard math. Should be the easier argument to make.

[celinamuna]

Thankfully now that we have the mechanic in place, it's much easier to make tuning arguments once that phase of beta gets going. Less reliance on 'soft' feedback like how things feel, more opportunity to show hard math. Should be the easier argument to make.

I can rely on purty colors ^.^

[Rewyn]

- 2/4 does seem low...3/6 seems better but I agree this is a step in the right direction.

- The increase of Hammer cd to 4 seconds from 3 seems odd. I'm guessing the damage buff it will receive will be rather spectacular?

- Really sad the healing concerns wern't brought up. I have always felt that protadin self healing should be among the best for tanks since holy energy is our bred and butter. really hoping to see something changed with LoTG.

- Seraphim eating two charges is interesting. It used to cost 1.66 SoTR---will it be a bit more effective than before?

- Judgement still doesn't seem 'fun' to press. Would love to see the effect be more interesting on its own merit somehow. I feel a row of talents should have been dedicated to changing/adding effects to Judgement more interestingly.

The comment from Celestalon about our damage was also great to see. Overall good---I think if LoTG is fixed I will be pretty happy.

[Melsiren]

This seems like a step in the right direction.

Now we just need HA back

[Taeldorian]

Guardian of Ancient Kings

Lmao I guess that was a stupid question, but thank you for the answer. I assumed the name would be different since it turns you into the guardian rather than summon it.